6:00 AM the next morning.
Raphael was jolted awake by the relentless ringing of his phone.
He blindly groped the nightstand with his eyes glued shut, finally pulling the receiver to his ear. His voice was thick with sleep.
"Unless aliens are invading Earth, you'd better have a damn good reason for—"
"It's worse than that," Ari's voice practically vibrated through the speaker, sounding like he'd just snorted a line of espresso.
"You need to be in the hair and makeup chair at Good Morning America by 7:30. You go live at 8:15. Your assistant will be downstairs in twenty minutes. You're not even out of bed yet, are you?"
Raphael opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling.
"What time is it?"
"6:03. You have exactly enough time to shower and make yourself look human. Oh, and the stylist is waiting at the studio. Don't try to do your own hair."
"...I washed it last night."
"Raph, that was yesterday. Today, your hair belongs to the Walt Disney Company and ABC. Do what they tell you."
Click.
Raphael dropped the phone onto his face, letting out a sound that was somewhere between a heavy sigh and a low growl.
Ever since he'd booked Anakin, he'd been staying up late practicing the Jedi Mind Trick. He felt like he'd just run a marathon.
But he had to push through it today.
Today was the official kickoff of the massive press tour for The Fast and the Furious.
He threw the covers off and padded barefoot into the bathroom.
The guy staring back at him in the mirror looked older than his actual age—not because of wrinkles, but because of his eyes.
A nineteen-year-old face with twenty-nine-year-old eyes.
Raphael stared at himself for three seconds, then cranked the faucet.
The scalding water washed away the exhaustion, along with all thoughts of Coruscant, the Force, and Anakin Skywalker.
Today, he was Brian O'Conner.
He was going to make sure every single person in America remembered the name of the undercover cop in blue jeans who infiltrated the street racing underworld.
---
Three hours later. The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
His interview with The Hollywood Reporter was scheduled for 10:30 AM, right on the heels of his GMA appearance.
Raphael was already in his second look of the day—a crisp white tee layered under a dark gray button-down. It looked sharp but effortless. The stylist called it "smart casual."
The journalist was a veteran film critic in her fifties, with silver hair and gold-rimmed glasses. She introduced herself as Elaine Dumont; she'd been covering the Hollywood beat since the '70s.
"Take a seat. Relax," she said, gesturing to the armchair across from her.
Raphael sat down, adjusting his posture. His legs were slightly apart, his back straight but completely relaxed.
It was a habit ingrained from his Jedi meditation classes: physically relaxed but mentally sharp; focused, but never tense.
"Let's start with an easy one," Elaine said, flipping open her notebook. "You were born in 1982, making you nineteen years old. This is your major feature film debut, correct?"
"Technically, yes," Raphael answered easily. "I did a student short film before this for a director at USC. My entire paycheck was a plate of Chinese takeout."
Elaine chuckled. "Was the takeout worth it?"
"Absolutely." Raphael nodded seriously. "That place makes the best Kung Pao chicken in Los Angeles. I still go back there sometimes."
"Do they know you're a movie star now?"
"I'm not a star yet," Raphael offered a modest smile. "Just a very lucky rookie."
Elaine glanced up at him over the rim of her glasses. That was an incredibly polished answer. Too polished for a typical nineteen-year-old kid to come up with on the fly.
"In the film, you play Brian O'Conner, an undercover cop who infiltrates the LA street racing scene. Did you find any personal resonance with the character?"
Raphael didn't answer immediately.
He thought back to the dream world. He remembered the first time he drove that tuned-up Toyota into Dominic Toretto's turf. He remembered the suffocating tension of being in hostile territory, having to disguise his true intentions with every choice he made, while constantly terrified that he might actually lose himself in the lie.
"Brian is a complicated guy," Raphael began, his tone thoughtful. "He became a cop because he believes in law and order, but what he truly loves—what he was born to do—is race. Behind the wheel is the only place he feels completely free. So when he embeds himself in Dom's crew, he realizes he actually has more in common with them than he does with the badge. That's where the friction comes from."
He paused for a beat.
"I think being nineteen is inherently complicated anyway. You're desperate to prove yourself, but you have no idea who you actually want to be. You want to fit in, but you're terrified of losing your identity. In a way, Brian's struggle is my struggle."
Elaine jotted something down in her notebook.
"That's a very mature read on the character," she noted. "Universal's PR materials mention that you beat out several established actors for the role in the final round of auditions. Do you have any insight into why you were chosen?"
Raphael knew exactly why.
Half of it was the cosmic, reality-warping influence of his cheat code rewiring the brains of the Universal executives, and the other half was his Jewish heritage.
Obviously, he couldn't say that.
"I honestly have no idea," Raphael lied smoothly. "Director Rob Cohen told me later that he was looking for a face that had 'street grit but was still clean.' He said a lot of the guys who came in were either too polished and 'actor-y,' or they were too rough around the edges. It was hard to find someone who sat right on the line."
"And you happened to sit right on that line?"
"I was just trying not to completely blow the audition," Raphael laughed. "Maybe being terrified actually worked in my favor."
Elaine closed her notebook and shifted in her seat.
"One last question. This isn't for the piece, just personal curiosity. Are you friends with Paul Walker? I know he was heavily considered for the role before you booked it."
The question came out of nowhere.
Raphael didn't miss a beat. "We actually bumped into each other at the commissary on the Universal lot. He was incredibly gracious. Wished me luck. I'd love to work with him someday."
"He's a very talented young man," Elaine said. "And so are you."
"Thank you."
The interview wrapped. Raphael stood up, shook her hand, and walked her to the door of the suite.
The second the door clicked shut, his perfect posture vanished.
Ari stood up from the sofa in the corner. "'I'd love to work with him someday'? Jesus, you sound like you've been an A-lister for twenty years."
"It's a hell of a lot better than saying, 'I don't know the guy from Adam.'"
"Fair enough." Ari handed him a printed schedule. "Your Variety interview got pushed to 3:00 PM tomorrow. This afternoon is your cover shoot for Empire magazine. Tonight, you're doing a live podcast interview. It's streaming, so watch what you say."
Raphael scanned the sheet.
"What's the format for the podcast?"
"Rapid fire," Ari explained. "Fans submit questions, the host picks the best ones, and you answer them on the spot. Twenty minutes. Easy gig."
"'Easy gig,'" Raphael repeated dubiously. "You sure about that?"
Ari thought about it for a second. "Not really. But you'd better get used to it."
---
Empire Magazine Photo Studio. 2:00 PM.
When Raphael was shoved into the makeup chair, the crew was still dialing in the lighting.
The photographer was a bald British guy who fired off instructions with a thick, rapid-fire Yorkshire accent.
He circled Raphael three times, rubbing his chin critically.
"Lose the shirt!" the photographer barked at the stylist. "It's too stiff. It doesn't work for the kid. Get him a beat-up leather jacket, a white tank top underneath, and a pair of distressed jeans."
The stylist looked panicked. "He has a podcast interview right after this—"
"Podcasts are audio!" the photographer snapped. "Nobody's going to see what he's wearing!"
Fifteen minutes later, Raphael stepped in front of a slate-gray backdrop. He was wearing a faded leather jacket that looked like it had been pulled out of a dumpster, the collar frayed white and the cuffs stained with engine oil.
It was a custom prop the wardrobe department had sourced specifically for the Fast promo tour, heavily inspired by Brian O'Conner's aesthetic.
The photographer raised his camera. "Think about your car. Not the Mustang you drove here. The orange Toyota you drive in the movie. You just spent three months saving every dime to build it. You tightened every single bolt yourself. You're about to take it out on the street for the first time. The sky is blue, the wind is perfect. Give me that feeling."
Raphael lowered his eyes, a faint, genuine smile pulling at his lips.
He was thinking about a car, alright.
But it wasn't the Toyota from the movie.
It was the Dodge Charger sitting in the dark corner of Dom Toretto's garage in the dream world.
The massive, silver beast with the supercharger jutting out of the hood like a sleeping monster.
He casually brushed his thumb against the oil-stained cuff of the jacket.
The shutter clicked in a rapid, machine-gun burst.
"YES!" the photographer roared. "That's the look! Not a smile, it's anticipation! You can't wait to hit the gas! Hold it right there!"
Raphael held it.
He thought about the massive engine block of the Charger. He thought about Dom's intense focus as he taught him how to tune the carburetor. He thought about the underground racers in the dream world—guys who weren't exactly his friends, but who felt more real to him than half the people he knew in reality.
Brian O'Conner wanted nothing more than to be accepted by those guys.
And in that brief moment, so did Raphael.
---
NBC Studios, Burbank. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
It would be another twelve years before Jimmy Fallon took over the desk.
The taping was scheduled for the primetime slot.
When Raphael walked onto the stage in a sharp, navy-blue single-breasted suit, the applause from the audience was polite but sparse. Almost nobody in the crowd recognized him.
Jay Leno stood behind his iconic wooden desk. He let Raphael take a seat on the couch, fired off a couple of political jokes to warm up the crowd, and then finally turned his attention to his guest.
"Raphael Lee," Leno read off his cue card. "I gotta admit, this is a new name for us here at the show. But the folks at Universal assure me that by this weekend, everyone in America is going to know exactly who you are."
"I hope so," Raphael smiled easily. "My mom finally learned how to pronounce it, so that's the main hurdle cleared."
A ripple of laughter went through the audience.
Leno raised an eyebrow. "Did your mom get to see the movie?"
"She missed the premiere, and she was furious about it," Raphael said, settling back into the couch. "She finally saw it this morning. She called me as she was walking out of the theater and said, 'Raph, the way you were driving was terrifying! Don't you ever drive that fast in real life.' I told her, 'Mom, those were stunt drivers.' And she just goes, 'Oh. Well, tell the stunt drivers to be careful next time.'"
The audience laughed louder this time.
Leno chuckled. "That is the ultimate mom response. Are you an only child?"
"I have an older brother," Raphael answered. "He's a lawyer. The smart one in the family. My mom spent years trying to convince me to go to law school, right up until I pointed out that lawyers have to read way more pages than actors do."
"So you became an actor to get out of doing your homework?"
"Exactly." Raphael deadpanned. "I'd rather crash ten cars than memorize the Constitution."
A smattering of genuine applause broke out from the crowd.
Leno leaned forward on his desk, his expression clearly signaling to the audience: Okay, this kid's actually got some chops.